


The Shape Of Us

by PinkLetterDay



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Body Image, Body Positivity, F/M, barry has his faults but sometimes he is the best husband, mature westallen, parenting, sexy talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 00:47:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16186592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkLetterDay/pseuds/PinkLetterDay
Summary: Happiness, it turns out, takes work. But having an adoring husband sure helps.





	The Shape Of Us

  
Anyone who tells you you can get your old body back after giving birth is a liar.  
  
Maybe it's possible for celebrities whose job is to stay looking twenty-five forever, with the time and money for personal trainers and fad diets. But Iris West-Allen is a woman completely run off her feet at any given moment of the day between work deadlines, ferrying their twins, juggling STAR Labs and PTA meetings with Barry, vet appointments and, oh yes, bizzare superhero shenanigans. Flab is one battle she has neither the time nor energy to fight, especially after that mid-thirties thickness starts settling in.   
  
Some days she wakes up already exhausted. Her husband’s morning energy is more obnoxious than ever, although him taking over the breakfast and kid-dressing duties allows her to take her time getting up. She still worries that Barry lets her slack too much, super-metabolism or no, because he's as bad about getting in some rest as she is. 

Sometimes they go weeks without more than a peck on the lips. They rush to and fro almost zombified, the children’s shrieking white noise around them that they only register when it goes silent. Getting them to bed and then getting them to stay there is a team effort. They’ll beg for bedtime stories and make Daddy sing for them over and over or Iris read the same story over and over (she’s tempted to burn Llama Llama Red Pyjama) before they finally go down. Iris and Barry do a silly (very quiet) little victory dance outside their room when they do, but they have only won the battle, not the war. Dawn somehow manages to sleepily pad downstairs and ask for milk with puppy eyes and Don is eternally seeing monsters in the dark and crawling into bed with them at three am.  
  
Iris loves her children, she really does, but nowadays when she sees herself in the mirror, she doesn’t recognize who that is. She always wears sweat pants at home now, none of her lingerie fit and she hasn’t bought anything new in ages. She doesn’t feel sexy or even like a complete person sometimes; just a pair of hands to cook and clean and wash and write and direct; life simply a series of hurdles and hoops, some of them on fire. For a couple one half speedster, there is never enough  _time_  for anything. She loves Barry, she really does, but she can barely feel his presence anymore even when he’s standing next to her. She wants to be touched and made love to and drown in his eyes the way they used to do. But she also doesn’t want anyone to touch her until she gathers up every single piece she gets to keep for herself and feels her own shape again.  
  
No one told her that being happy would take work. She sort of thought it’d just happen on its own. She married her best friend, the man who is everything she wants, had his babies, has remarkably few financial struggles, a beautiful home, a successful career and leads a superhero team that regularly saves the world. If anyone should be happy and fulfilled, its her.  
  
She kind of wishes she didn’t have quite so many things to be happy about. It’s an awful thought that that makes her feel crushingly guilty, but there it is. It’s all just…so tiring.  
  
The day comes when she has to throw out her favourite pair of pants in the Goodwill box. She’s kept them for years, certain she will be able to drop those last stubborn few pounds and squeeze back into them, but it’s time to face facts now.  
  
It feels like giving up. Tears clog the back of her throat which makes her even more irritated because she hates self-pity and  _its just a stupid pair of pants, Jesus_. But she can’t help looking sadly at her young and svelte self in her wedding picture. Barry seems like he hasn’t aged a day since, thanks to his speedster regeneration. Iris is suddenly struck by the mortal fear that he will remain ever-youthful and virile while she fades into decrepit old age by his side.  
  
Barry finds her crying on their bed, surrounded by a closetful of haphazardly strewn clothes.  
  
“Iris, what’s wrong?” he kneels at her feet to search her face, alarmed. She so rarely cries. “Are you hurt?”  
  
She makes to sniffle the tears back and wave him off but what bursts out of her is - “I’m fat!”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
It all comes rushing out. “I’m fat, I’m beginning a double chin. I’m a slob, I’m sick of perming my hair, sick of wearing t-shirts with pepperoni stains on them, sick of nothing fitting me anymore! I’m just gonna get fatter and uglier and tireder and you’re gonna stay looking stupidly handsome and _I really really hate Llama Llama Red Pyjama_!”  
  
There is a bewildered silence.  
  
They look at each other and begin to laugh. She can’t stop. There is an edge of hysteria to her giggling.  
  
“Um. Okay,” says Barry finally. “First of all, you’re not fat.”  
  
She looks pointedly at their wedding picture on her lap. “I sure as hell don’t look like that anymore.”  
  
“No, you don’t,” he agrees and a despondent hurt stabs her in the chest. “You’re much more beautiful.”  
  
“That’s sweet,” she says with a half-hearted smile.  
  
“I’m telling you the truth. Iris,” he turns her to look at him, cradling her cheek. His face is so earnest. “When I met you in third grade, I thought you were the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. That's never changed. On our wedding day,” he draws his thumb over her younger, beaming face, “I wanted to die when I saw you. I thought, okay. This is it, there’s no way you could be any more beautiful than this. But you keep proving me wrong.”  
  
There is that look that always makes her insides gooshy. God, she’s missed it. “I forgot what a charmer you are, Barry Allen.”  
  
“It isn’t charm,” he snakes his hands deliberately under her t-shirt and husks against her ear, “I don’t think you understand how much I love this body.”  
  
She melts under the possessive hands roaming under her clothes. “You do?”  
  
“This made my children,” his hands draw along the curve of her hips and soft rolls of flab at her stomach, “these fed them,” one hand kneads her breast, pleasure pooling in her belly. “I felt it change in my arms, under my hands, my mouth,” he flicks his tongue against her ear and  _oh_ , that is not playing fair at all. “I’ve tasted it. I know every inch of it. Held it against me every night. I’ve been inside it,” his fingers slide under the waistband of her pants, “I’m the only one who gets to see it naked. I can never get enough of it. You drive me wild, Iris. You always have.”  
  
“Barry…,” her breath catches as he lays her down on the bed.  
  
He leans over her and all the world is the blue of his eyes, dark with lust and soft with love. “You’re still the most beautiful woman in the world, Iris West.”  
  
She drowns in his kiss as he presses her down, drawing his hardness flush against the heat between her legs -  
  
_“Mooom! Donny won’t give back my tablet!”_  
  
_“It’s mine! Daddy said you had to wait your turn!”_  
  
_“It is my turn!”_  
  
_“Daaaad!”_  
  
Mood officially killed dead.  
  
“So. Rain check?,” mumbles Iris into Barry’s shoulder.  
  
He sighs into her neck. “Tonight. I’m gonna ravish you,” he promises, kissing her hard and quick. Then considers. “Right after we burn Llama Llama Red Pyjama.”  
  
“Oh, thank God."  
  
Late that night they lie in bed finally sated. Iris traces the planes of her husband's face as he sleeps. She suddenly realizes that he no more resembles the man in their wedding picture than she does. The Speed Force keeps him looking young, but it’s overlaid by an undefinable maturity. His shoulders and chest are broader, his arms bigger, his face more filled out. There is the gravitas of a father and superhero in his jawline, the burden of years has pulled a permanent furrow in his brow, weariness and patience lurk around his eyes and the lines of his mouth.  
  
Maybe she’s only seeing them because she knows they exist inside him, or maybe the shift in her perception has revealed what she has missed all this time. Either way, the years are as much stamped on him as they are on her.  
  
They’re growing older together. It’s all Iris has ever wanted.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this story, I'd love to hear from you! You can also visit me at [pinkletterday](https://pinkletterday.tumblr.com) on tumblr. <3
> 
>  
> 
> [Added commentary/ coda at my tumblr (scroll down)](https://pinkletterday.tumblr.com/post/178608016715/been-thinking-about-mature-westallen-iris-is)


End file.
